Cancer Disparities

Improving Quality and Achieving Equity: A Guide for Hospital Leaders

The MGH Disparities Solutions Center, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is proud to announce the release of Improving Quality and Achieving Equity: A Guide for Hospital Leaders.

The goals of this Guide are to:

Present the evidence for racial and ethnic disparities in health care and provide the rationale for addressing them—with a focus on quality, cost, risk management and accreditation.

Highlight model practices—hospitals and leaders who are actively engaged in addressing disparities and achieving equity.

Recommend a set of activities and resources that can help hospital leaders initiate an agenda for action in this area.

This Guide is clear, concise, practical, and easy to read. It is targeted to hospital leaders - including CEO’s, VP’s, and others that focus on quality, safety, finance, and risk management. The Guide was also designed to be used by individuals within hospitals who either would like to help convince their leadership to take action, or who are responsible for making the case for addressing disparities to other leaders in the hospital. It is applicable to all types of hospitals - rural, urban, public, private, and veteran’s administration, among others.

It was developed over the course of 2008, and includes a thorough review of the peer-reviewed literature, key informant interviews with hospital leaders, and case studies of innovative approaches that hospitals are undertaking to identify and address disparities, as well as to achieve equity.

The Guide is available free of charge on the DSC website. View the web-based guide or download the complete guide (PDF).

The Guide was launched with an interactive, web-based seminar that is archived and available for viewing on the DSC website.